CRADLE ROLL MINISTRY

           When a child is baptized, the parents and sponsors promise to nurture and encourage their children's faith life. At Immanuel-Trinity, we try to help parents nurture this faith with a program called "Beginnings". In this program, the parents receive a series of mailings which provide developmental information from a Christian perspective.These pamphlets are intended to enhance parents' knowledge of the developmental stages of their child and story books that are a child's introduction to the stories of Jesus. Parents of our youngest members receive mailings after baptism, at 2, 4, 6, 8 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2 years, 30 months, and 3 years. We encourage parents to try to have their children baptized by the time they are two months old. At age three, the children can take part in our Sunday School program, and the mailings are finished.        

       Currently we have about 65 children in our congregation who receive the "Beginnings" mailings. You can see who they are by checking out the Cradle Roll display down in our Fellowship Hall. Each child's name, birth date and baptismal date are on a lamb. It truly is a neat beginning ministry for the youngest members of our congregation.

        The responsibilities and duties of parents and sponsors are to faithfully bring them to the services of God's house, and teach them the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. You should place in their hands the Holy Scriptures and provide for their instruction in the Christian faith, that, living in the covenant of their Baptism and in communion with the Church, they may lead godly lives until the day of Jesus Christ.